In early August, officials announced they expected 800,000 refugees to reach Germany. In the third week of August, Germany announced that Syrian refugees could stay, rather than be removed to their original point of entry to the EU. This corresponds to a further negative turn in the tone of German media coverage.

The photos of Syrian toddler Aylan [Alan] Kurdi published in the first week of September triggered a jump in searches on refugees in Germany. The mood of German news coverage peaks as Angela Merkel addressed the UN General Assembly on 25 September.

The tone of the coverage, as measured by GDELT, never reaches a neutral value of 0. Further dips in the tone of coverage in October coincide with debates on the shaky EU quota plan and objections from the state of Bavaria about plans for refugees.

After a dramatic summer, these two big data sources suggest the tone of news coverage about refugees has settled back to the levels of early August, but that public interest remains relatively high.